FabCon and SQLCon Europe 2026: The biggest announcements from Barcelona

FabCon and SQLCon Europe 2026: The biggest announcements from Barcelona

Last week, 5,000 data professionals joined us for The European Microsoft Fabric + SQL Community Conference 2026, bringing the Microsoft Fabric and SQL communities together for three packed days of learning, announcements, conversations and connections in Barcelona.

With more than 130 sessions, 10+ tutorials and community meetups, there was a lot happening across the conference. Microsoft also chose Barcelona to unveil a significant number of updates across Fabric, Power BI, OneLake, Data Factory, SQL and the wider data platform.

Now that we’ve had a chance to process everything that was announced, we’ve put together some of the biggest news and takeaways from an unforgettable week.

Fabric IQ comes to Microsoft Copilot

One of the major announcements from the week was the general availability of Fabric IQ in Microsoft Copilot Chat and Copilot Cowork, bringing governed business context from Fabric directly into Copilot.

Fabric IQ connects enterprise data with Power BI semantic models, business metrics, ontologies and operational context. This means the definitions and business logic already captured in trusted semantic models can provide valuable context when people work with Copilot.

Microsoft also announced IQ sharing in preview, designed to allow governed data and its associated business context to be shared securely across teams, customers, partners and wider ecosystems.

For data teams, this puts even greater value on something that has always mattered: well-governed data, strong semantic models and consistent business definitions.

Power BI expands beyond reporting

There was plenty of Power BI news in Barcelona, including a new agentic app creation experience for Power BI Desktop.

Starting with a trusted semantic model, users will be able to describe an application in natural language, generate it, edit it and publish it to Microsoft Fabric. These applications can accept inputs, write data back, maintain shared state and support operational workflows, with Fabric Apps providing the underlying SQL database, authentication and security.

It’s a notable expansion of what people can build with Power BI. Alongside reports and dashboards, analysts will increasingly be able to create applications that support business processes and help users take action directly from their data.

A new Fabric data engineering agent

Microsoft also introduced the Fabric data engineering agent in preview, built using technology from its acquisition of Osmos.

Rather than focusing on individual coding tasks, the agent is designed to work across larger engineering projects including data platform migrations, lakehouse modernisation, ETL, data preparation and performance optimisation.

Engineers define the required outcome and guardrails, while the agent can plan the work, execute it, validate the results and refine its approach. Microsoft is also extending the experience into development environments including GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio Code.

More ways to connect and use OneLake

OneLake received a substantial set of updates in Barcelona as Microsoft continues to expand the range of platforms and services that can connect to Fabric.

Google BigQuery Mirroring became generally available, while bidirectional integration with Salesforce Data Cloud 360 entered preview. Microsoft also announced deeper integration with Dynamics 365 Business Central and further expansion of the OneLake ecosystem.

There was an important commercial update too. Microsoft announced on-demand billing for OneLake compute in preview, together with Fabric zero-provisioned, or F0. This gives organisations a way to start using OneLake without first provisioning dedicated Fabric capacity, with compute billed as it is consumed.

For organisations exploring Fabric or starting with a smaller use case, that provides considerably more flexibility in how they get started.

45+ new capabilities for Data Factory

Microsoft announced more than 45 new capabilities across data movement, transformation, orchestration and monitoring. The updates include additional data sources and destinations, improvements to replication governance, more resilient pipelines and richer operational monitoring. New investigation capabilities can also help engineers identify whether pipeline problems originate in code, data or capacity.

Microsoft also introduced a new upgrade experience for Azure Data Factory customers. Existing Azure Data Factory environments can be brought into Fabric, giving teams visibility of their pipelines through Fabric and allowing them to use familiar management and monitoring experiences as they plan their migration.

SQLCon Europe makes its debut

Barcelona was also a milestone for the SQL community, with the first SQLCon Europe taking place alongside FabCon.

Among the major announcements was Database Hub in Fabric entering public preview. Database Hub provides a central location for managing and monitoring database estates across SQL Server, Azure SQL, PostgreSQL, Azure Cosmos DB and SQL database in Fabric.

Microsoft also announced database agents designed to help teams analyse operational signals, investigate database issues and identify optimisation opportunities, while retaining role-based controls, approvals and auditing.

For developers, Agent Mode for GitHub Copilot in SQL Server Management Studio became generally available, supporting more complex, multi-step database work.

There were further Azure SQL updates too, including 192 vCore support for Azure SQL Database Hyperscale and wider availability of DiskANN vector indexes across Azure SQL Database Hyperscale, Azure SQL Managed Instance and SQL database in Fabric.

Bringing SQLCon and FabCon together gave the two communities plenty of opportunities to cross paths, while still giving SQL professionals a dedicated programme of their own.

A growing European data community

Beyond the announcements, one of the things we’ll remember most about Barcelona is the scale and energy of the community that joined us.

5,000 people attended FabCon and SQLCon Europe this year, bringing together Microsoft product teams, engineers, MVPs, partners, customers and practitioners from across Europe and beyond. This year’s event cemented FabCon + SQLCon Europe’s place as the largest Microsoft conference in Europe.

For a dedicated Microsoft Fabric and SQL community conference, reaching that scale is something we’re incredibly proud of. More importantly, it created the kind of environment we want FabCon and SQLCon to be: somewhere you can hear directly from the people building the technology, learn from people using it in the real world and meet thousands of others working through many of the same challenges.

A huge thank you to everyone who spoke, sponsored, volunteered, exhibited, shared their expertise or simply came along and got involved.

FabCon + SQLCon Europe is taking place in Amsterdam in 2027. Register your interest today!

Sources

Microsoft Azure Blog: FabCon and SQLCon 2026 in Barcelona: Building the data foundation for Microsoft Copilot and agents
https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/fabcon-and-sqlcon-2026-in-barcelona-building-the-data-foundation-for-microsoft-copilot-and-agents/

Microsoft SQL Server Blog: SQLCon Barcelona 2026: Advancing SQL with greater control, scale, and intelligence
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/blog/2026/09/28/sqlcon-barcelona-2026-advancing-sql-with-greater-control-scale-and-intelligence/

Microsoft Fabric Blog: FabCon and SQLCon Barcelona 2026: What’s new in Microsoft OneLake and its rapidly growing ecosystem
https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/blog/fbc_fabricupdatesblogs/fabcon-and-sqlcon-barcelona-2026-what%E2%80%99s-new-in-microsoft-onelake-and-its-rapidly/5369146

Microsoft Fabric Blog: FabCon/SQLCon Barcelona 2026: What’s new in Fabric Data Factory
https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/blog/fbc_fabricupdatesblogs/fabconsqlcon-barcelona-2026-what%E2%80%99s-new-in-fabric-data-factory/5369551

Microsoft Fabric Blog: Bringing governed analytics into the flow of work: Fabric Analytics at FabCon Europe 2026
https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/blog/fbc_fabricupdatesblogs/bringing-governed-analytics-into-the-flow-of-work-fabric-analytics-at-fabcon-eur/5368918